This is another in a series of skeptical and critical questions about Christianity.

Question: Why did God create Adam and Eve? If He knew mankind would sin and eventually need to be killed (Noah’s flood), why create Adam and Eve in the first place? If God knew that they would sin and need judgement, then God must have wanted them to sin and wanted to judge them.

Answer: This question fails to account for several factors. First, forced love is impossible, for love must be freely chosen. I can create a computer program that every night when I come home, the computer says “Welcome home dear, I missed you. I love you.” But the computer would not have actually missed me, nor would it really love me. It would merely be doing what it was created to do, for it did not have a choice. Love, by contrast, must be freely chosen, or it is not love. Therefore if God made mankind such that we could not but respond favorably to God, we would not be loving. Such is necessary for being created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). Therefore if God wanted to create a being in His own image that was capable of freely loving Him, He had to give us the ability to walk away and deny Him.

Second, as always, “why?” questions are interesting to ponder, but give us absolutely no rational argument for or against God, the Bible, or anything religious. Just because we might not know exactly why God does something, it does not follow that there is no good reason.

Third, because the only way to the greater good, love, is to have the freedom to deny God, then it does not follow that God necessarily wanted sin and judgement, but that sin and judgment were a necessary consequence to obtaining the greater good. A parent does not enjoy it when a child suffers through problems, but doing so is the only way for the child to learn maturity.

Fourth, God always provides a way to be reconciled with Him. Judgement is never the only alternative, but a loving God always provides a way to get back into good standing with Himself. Those who fall into judgement are those who do not take advantage of God’s way to avoid judgement. Jesus said, “I stand at the door and knock” which means He is waiting for us to change our minds and follow Him.